Last night I booted it past a NSL sign and there was suddenly a burst of red and orange sparks being fired out of the exhaust. It was a little worrying at the time - I thought the car was on fire!

Has anyone had this before or care to speculate on the cause?

The car is running fine, no issues.

Joe

Has the cat disintegrated? Or the baffles in the exhaust gone?

Aftermarket exhaust?

Could be packing that's made it out of welds

Probably the cat breaking up

Have you got a aftermarket air filter

Mine has done this on a previous car. The back box was ruined afterwards, it was the packing inside it.

Flames from a diesel, good going Joe

Not sure what could have caused it though

If it was me, I'd start putting some money to one side as if  

I'm honest I think you have an expensive repair bill on the way.

My money would be on it being either exhaust or turbo related.

It's not normal to have that happening and its a sign that something is likely

to fail quite soon. Still you can always use it as an opportunity to upgrade.

And I suppose it could just be a burn off of soot particles??  

Depends how often you give it some welly.If hardly ever then that could be what

it is, if you give it death all the time it's unlikely to be soot build up?  

Keep a close eye on it and start saving.   

The turbo is quite new Garry, only fitted last year. It's one of the darkside turbo kits

not super common but not unheard of either, I think people have put it down to soot/carbon/whatever in the exhaust being burnt off

Sounds like the silencer has started to break up. 

Day

Thanks for the replies folks.

It's not the cat because I have a Milltec De-cat.

I'm hoping it was just some very hot soot being sent out at high revs. Hopefully not the turbo as that was new this April. As for it being an excuse to upgrade, I hope not. I've already spent a small fortune on this car!

I parked my car outside last night as I was worried it might burn the garage down!

Hopefully nothing serious for you joe, what about the baffles in the back box? Cant see it being the back box though as I doubt it would get that hot, although with the bigger blower it will raise temps quite abit.

Hopefully nothing serious for you joe, what about the baffles in the back box? Cant see it being the back box though as I doubt it would get that hot, although with the bigger blower it will raise temps quite abit.

Yeah, it should only be the turbo end of the exhaust that gets extremely hot. That said though the tip of my exhaust is practically too hot to touch after normal driving.

Who needs baffles in an exhaust anyway!

Joe

Mines has done this loads when I running a green cotton filter and it rotten to dead and going through the system, which I ain't good so been running a paper one for ages now. Plus there good for 230bhp anyways

Probably soot burning off I would think and clearing.

Mines has done this loads when I running a green cotton filter and it rotten to dead and going through the system, which I ain't good so been running a paper one for ages now. Plus there good for 230bhp anyways

 

This is a good point, check your air filter to make sure it hasn't broken up.

Yea I think either baffles or soot burning.

Friend of mine had the exact same thing.. He'd just fitted new injectors and had been making progress up the motorway for a few hours and the baffles in the backbox started disintegrating because it got too hot. Sounds like the same thing here..